Posts Tagged ‘DMZ’

I forgot that I have The Archivist’s photos as well. Here are a few of the first three days.

The Archivist making her grand entrance into a palace. That first Chinese word means gate. I don’t know any more than that.

Sisters posing at the palace. We should have been princesses!

Walking around palaces is hard. Can we go shopping?

Our first real Korean meal of the trip. We over ordered. By a lot! But it was exactly like the Korean food I get here in the Bay Area. Nice to know that what I’m getting here is authentic, but kind of disappointed that I was already familiar with it all. Who left that fork in the picture!

The Archivist and a South Korean guard in the DMZ. Just a little more to your left. A little more…

Shopping! Meine Schwester is trying to get a bargain.

Yay! McDonalds! No, we never ate at McDonalds, but I felt better knowing I had the option.

Meine Schwester and friend.

Sisters dressed up for a night out on the town. Yes we are wearing dresses. Do we look related?

What happens when two sisters have two many sangrias? We start laughing so hard we cry. It runs in the family, guys! Now do we look related? ;-)

I forgot to mention a few more things about the DMZ. We also took a tour of the 3rd Tunnel of Agression the North Koreans were digging to get to Seoul. Sadly, no one can take photos, but you can see some photos of the maps on the wikipedia page.

The Wikipedia page on the DMZ is interesting. There you will find a picture in the Joint Security Area almost exactly like the one I took of the guard and a guy in the window with binoculars. In their photo the guard has binoculars too. They also talk about the fake North Korean town of Kijong-dong. The town is like a set for a movie, with no one actually living there.

North Korea is absolutely fascinating. If you get a chance, I suggest reading

It was highly entertaining and informative, although I took it with a grain of salt.

For our second day in Korea, we took a tour of the DMZ. This is actually a picture of me on the North Korean side of the room. I was petrified to cross the line. That is a South Korean guard there to protect us. Someone once went behind the guard and the North Koreans opened the door and tried to grab him and the South Korean guard had to fight the North Korean guy off. At least that is the story they told us to keep us from getting too close to the door. And I was happy to believe it. I didn’t want to turn with my back to the door. That guy has some massive balls standing there.

The Architect with the North Korean building behind her.

Me, Meine Schwester, and The Archivist at the lookout point. You can use the binocular things on the other side of the building to look out over North Korea. We could see the Kaesan Industrial Complex from there. That is the city where South Korea employs about 40,000 North Koreans to build cars and stuff.

Along the tour we picked up another girl. She was imitating how the South Korean army have to stand at attention.